Tyler Wright encourages Owen Wright, who was left on the cut line bubble after an emotional Round of 32 at Margaret River in 2022. Photo by Aaron Hughes//World Surf League
In April of 2021, Shane Maree Hatton was arrested and charged with 749 counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception, having embezzled $1.5 million over a period of 10 years from Tyler Wright, Owen Wright, and other members of the Wright family. She’d been employed as the family accountant and after pleading guilty, Wollongong District Court in New South Wales sentenced Hatton to five and a half years in prison this week.
The arrest itself took place about six months after Tyler Wright’s agent, Nick Fordham, reportedly discovered inconsistencies in Tyler’s finances. But the issue had apparently caused problems for the whole family years before that, with a letter to the court showing that Owen actually accused his parents of stealing the money at one point.
“I was still being stolen from while I could barely walk and while doctors were saying I would never work again,” he said, referring to recovery from a brain injury suffered at Pipe in 2015. “I wanted to retire but I couldn’t financially and fought back… risking my life in the process.”
Police didn’t expect to recover around $1.2 million of the $1.5 million stolen from the family when they made the arrest in 2021 because they believed it had already been spent. In court, Hatton confessed she was in fact gambling with much of the money illegally taken during more than 700 transactions. According to reports, a judge ordered her to pay just $647,700 back to the family in compensation, awarding Owen $326,500, $262,000 to Tyler, $20,500 to Mikey, and $37,500 to their parents Fiona and Robert.
